Page 88 of King of Sinners

“Mason? Is that you?” I hear Charlotte call from behind me.

I look back to see her rising from the bed. “You’re not supposed to see him,” I say, closing the door a little tighter around my body to block the view.

“I won’t,” Charlotte says as she wraps a robe about her body, the same white hotel one I’m wearing. The difference is she has a high-end negligee under hers and I’ve got a ratty T-shirt under mine. “I just want to talk to him through a crack in the door.”

I’ve no choice but to step out into the hall, my bare feet on full display. At least Mason had sent a manicurist to do our fingers and toes last night. Mine have a fresh coat of pale pink polish on them that should go nicely with the dress. I curl them into the carpet as Leo gives me a long look up and down, the sort that makes my skin heat. “I don’t know if you remember, but we’ve met before.”

I shake my head. I don’t really, and I feel like I would. He’s not the kind of man a girl forgets.

I know the story. Charlotte went on a couple of dates with Leo a few years back and that’s how she met Mason.

Leo came into the bar on a night we were both working. Case in point, he asked Charlotte out that night and not me. I don’t make an impression on rich and successful guys. Not like she does.

Then again, I was probably hustling like nobody’s business the night he came in.

I have a full scholarship to UNLV so I don’t have to pay tuition, but the rest of my life, including all the costs of training as a dancer, I’ve had to finance on my own and tips is the way I make it happen most nights.

My mom has nothing to spare to help me.

“Sort of…” I say as I look down the hall. Anywhere but at him.

“I remember you.”

He steps closer and I can feel the heat of him, my nipples actually stiffen as I wrap the robe tighter around me again.

What would it be like to have a man like this in my bed? My body pulses with a delicious ache at the idea of it, a feeling I try to tamp down.

I have a confession to make. I’ve only ever slept with one guy and he never actually made me…

I swallow down a lump. “You do?”

Next to me, Mason is whispering to Charlotte through the crack in the door, his hand pressed to the thick wood as though he’d like to bust down the door, but I can’t make out a word he’s saying. My whole body is focused on Leo.

I close my eyes, my chin titling up and to the side. Why I’m exposing my neck to a man I just called lethal, I don’t know…

“I do.” His hand comes to the wall behind me, the one I just realized I’m leaning against, his thumb brushing the indent of my waist. “And I have to confess, I’m disappointed you don’t remember me.”

There is no point in lying. Tomorrow I’ll leave and then I’ll likely never see Leo again. “I seriously doubt I’ll forget you after today.”

I feel him grin. Don’t even ask me how that’s possible but I do as he shifts closer. “Oh yeah… why is that?”

“You’re…” I search for the right word. Hot as Hades? Tall, dark, and sinister? “Magnetic.”

His hand slides down the wall, his thumb tracing my hip. “Right back at you.”

“Hello,” a female voice calls from the other end of the hall. My eyes snap open. Mason and Leo’s sister, Arabella, is walking toward us with an army of people behind her. “The cavalry has arrived!”

A rack of dresses is at the back of the group, along with several women carrying cases of different shapes and sizes.

We’re all about to get major makeovers. Again.

This is Charlotte’s life now? It’s not without its appeal.

Leo pushes back and regret lances through me as I stand up straight, pasting a smile on my face.

An hour later, my long red hair has been twisted into some amazingly elaborate coif at the back. The dress is the perfect shade to highlight my green eyes, only further accentuated by the subtle shades of eyeliner and shadow.

And the mermaid style dress hugs my dancer’s body like it was custom made for me though I never gave anyone a single measurement.

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